


why bother with memory lane when your memory's just so plain?

by rottenkiwis



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: But also, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Light Angst, boys please talk to ur dad he misses u, but dont worry!!, hate that their real ass names r in some of these characer tags, i guess?, idk how to tag on this site yet lulw, lowercase intended, most of them besides phil r just kinda like?? mentions, or little snippets of them yk, philza centric, so i will not use those lmfao, uhhhh, vague vague mentions of the festival smile, youll see dw dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27241582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rottenkiwis/pseuds/rottenkiwis
Summary: phil realizes sometimes his world gets a little empty.title: inside my head by SUGR?
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), dont even fucken think of it buster
Comments: 9
Kudos: 256





	why bother with memory lane when your memory's just so plain?

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhhhhh yk thought maybe i'd post this one since it's one of my longest fics and it's philza centric and i like philza centric stuff
> 
> :)

phil learns he has a hard time finding the difference between peaceful and lonely sometimes. 

he supposes peaceful is when he sits above his nether project, watching the tnt duper move idly side to side. the far off sounds of ghasts and piglin troops making their way around the area he’s walled off keeping phil from just about nodding off. even with the nether’s uncomfortable heat, he’s thrown his robes over his legs, arms crossed lazily as he eyes the machine. peaceful living is the way the water gently pushes against his legs as he fishes. the way the wind easies the sun beating on his back, and he has to hold his hat as it picks up periodically. it’s quiet all around, the day slowing turning to dusk as he throws the fishing pole out into the water for the final time before he heads back inside. 

phil’s idea is peaceful is the voluntary decision to sit silently, letting nature live around him momentarily, instead of living in nature as he usually does.

lonely to phil is the days he spends indoors during a storm, waiting quietly with his communicator in his hands, hoping maybe one of them will send something. (he thinks how he doesn’t really mind what. even the blurry pictures wilbur likes to take of techno and tommy with the flash on that annoy them would be enough to phil right now.) though it’s most likely not storming on their world, he guesses if they happened to also be indoors for the day they’d contact. he was never one to control them, all he truly asked was to check in sometimes. phil can’t expect them to be available all the time, and he doesn't, but the lonely days spent staring down at the screen in hopes of a message makes him wish maybe, just maybe, urging them to keep a little more contact would’ve been better in the long run.

lonely to phil is the silent waiting game he plays every so often with himself, letting the silence become a ticking time bomb to something he knows will most likely not come that round of playing.

it’s not like he doesn’t see them at all, because that’s simply not true. the most solid ground he has on seeing them frequently is MCC. he’s not unhappy with seeing them during the event, far from it actually; but if phil misses the times when techno would periodically show up at his doorstep, bag of potatoes in one hand and the communicator that teleported him to phil’s doorstep in the other, well, phil would simply keep that to himself. watching them run past him during the games or seeing their excitement in the arena is still the best feeling in the world to phil, and he wouldn’t change it for the world. seeing his boys head off after the event to the same world is heartwarming, to say the least. 

he’s glad they’ve got each others backs, even if there’s been times where tommy has showed up at his door, tubbo in tow, tired and frustrated with the mess they’ve gotten themselves into. phil happily led them inside, handed them some potions from his storage, and sat them down for a good meal and a maybe some advice about negotiating. phil, unusually, gets the most information from tommy’s horrible storytelling skills. 

when wilbur comes by, hands clutched to his sides, voice wavering between excited and scared as he vaguely explains current events, phil can never really understand what’s going on. wilbur came over in a new type of outfit for him the last time, long coat ripped at the ends, and a wide grin on his face as he asked phil for some basic redstone knowledge. phil hadn’t questioned it at the time, aware of all the weird experimental worlds wilbur often made to test the limits. he assumed it was just another experiment he had thought of, though normally wilbur used world commands, not redstone. wilbur had left in a hurry the last time he visited.

if phil doesn’t push wilbur to explain with more detail, he really never does when techno comes over. the days phil spends with techno are always more quiet, techno simply needing a space away from all the constant chaos that is the current world he finds himself residing on. phil never asks questions, simply letting him do some of the more boring chores phil has found himself putting off for the times techno comes around. the most recent visit, techno had told phil he was sorry. when phil asked, techno shook his head at him, quietly mentioning something about peer pressure and how awfully influenced he is by it. phil ended up home that entire visit, all his rockets had gone missing. he never asked techno if he’d seen them. 

they never truly explain what’s happening on the smp to phil, but he doesn’t mind, getting to spend quality time with his boys is better than nothing.

phil decides peaceful is when he’s with them, sitting on the edge of the lake with wilbur as he fixes up his guitar, out of tune from the while he’s been gone. (wilbur hates the idea of it possibly being banged up in another world, so he leaves it tucked into a corner of phil’s house. phil doesn’t mention how often he sits in front of that guitar, wondering if he should learn how to tune it himself to keep wilbur from having to fix it every time he visits.) peaceful is the new recipes techno wrote down for all the extra potatoes he’s farmed, smiling sheepishly at the face phil makes at the chicken scratch handwriting. surprisingly, phil finds peace in the loud shouts of tommy’s storytelling, arms thrown wide as he exaggerates some story about ‘scamming the green bastard’.

(“and i did it- i did, phil! i even managed to get my discs here!” tommy had grinned, pointing proudly to the roughed up music discs laying on the chests nearby.

“do you want to play them while we eat?” phil turned his head slightly, hands moving still as he finished up with dinner. he had just recently gotten the jukebox working well again. tommy jumped to his feet, scrambling over to his discs, seemingly deep in thought as he chose which one would go best with their meal. 

dinner had been peaceful that night, cat playing throughout phil’s home as tommy retold recent events he went through.)

he doesn’t consider himself lonely by a long shot, living alone after many years of a full house doesn’t automatically make him lonely. phil supposes he has lonely moments, like when the pacing finally stops once he realizes there won’t be a call or message that day, or when he finally gets himself to start making food because the sun set hours ago and no one will surprise him at his door tonight. overall, his life is peaceful, living quietly among nature. there will always be off days for him, because that’s how life is, but he knows he can always look forward to some of his favorite kinds of days.

phil knows his favorite days are the days when there’s three- even four- knocks at his door. when wilbur finds out his guitar has been tuned already somehow, techno shoves tommy out of the kitchen by his face for the third time, and tubbo joins them lunch. the days phil spends helping techno make up new ways for mining netherite efficiently, or when phil manages to rangle in tommy and tubbo to show them around his newest build, or the days spent gathered around wilbur as he plays guitar out by the cow pin. 

phil knows his absolute favorite kinds of days are the ones spent with all of them there together, simply letting nature live around them.

**Author's Note:**

> i never post my fics but like i have maybe one or two others that r kinda old i'd be willing to post as well if someone told me to so??????? if u like... . i have a sapnap one i wrote about that one wither skeletons moment from one of the manhunts ;) just lmk !!!


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